[PR] EN World Print Magazine to be Published by Goodman Games

goodmangames · Nov 20, 2002

Cergorach said:
Nice, but who handles distribution for goodman games? (hopes it will be Ossyeum)

What format will it be B&W or full color? Glossy?

We're handled by Impressions - same folks who do Fiery Dragon, Citizen Games, Alien Menace, and 50-something other companies.

The format will start out as glossy color cover, B/W interior... and with your support, may someday be full color. =)

goodmangames · Nov 20, 2002

Re: Re: [PR] EN World Print Magazine to be Published by Goodman Games

jmucchiello said:
I don't mean to be negative (here it comes!) But, if memory serves me correctly (And I read them as they were published, not recently), the best reason to buy Dragon at the time was for articles like Gygax's From the
...
Nostalgia tells me that this was the best Dragon era. But if feats and PrCs had existed in 1st ed, early 1980's Dragons would have been full of feats and PrCs. Perhaps you are really targetting the very late 80's early 90s Dragons, when the mainstay of the magazine was on "role"-playing. There are far more

Yeah, those are good points. I agree that if feats and PrCs had existed in 1E, the early 1980s Dragon would have been full of them. But it would also have had a lot of crunchy rules that *weren't* feats and PrCs, and that's what I'm hoping the EN World mag will cover. There's a lot more ground to "crunchy" than just feats and PrCs.

Of course, you won't believe me till you see it.

But I think the magazine will speak for itself. Morrus holds in his hands the top-secret table of contents which, I suspect, will contain plenty of crunch without excessive reliance on feats and PrCs.

On this topic, though: What would people LIKE to see? What was your favorite era of Dragon? If you could balance a magazine's contents exactly as you'd like, what would you do?

Crothian · Nov 20, 2002

Re: Re: Re: [PR] EN World Print Magazine to be Published by Goodman Games

goodmangames said:
On this topic, though: What would people LIKE to see? What was your favorite era of Dragon? If you could balance a magazine's contents exactly as you'd like, what would you do?

I agree that feats and prestige classes are not needed. My gaming book selves are already overrunning with these things. I'd like to see expanded rules and thoughts on many of the options presented in DMG. Maybe ideas for running low magic worlds and dark fantasy, two things that many people can't seem to do in d20.

Aaron L · Nov 20, 2002

This is a rad idea.

I'd really like to see alternate magic systems balanced to work alongside the core magic system, rules for nonmagic-users to cast ritual spells, and general fill-in-the-gap rules for things that slipped through the core books. A good system for customizing core classes as suggested in the PHB would be nice too.

jmucchiello · Nov 20, 2002

Re: Re: Re: [PR] EN World Print Magazine to be Published by Goodman Games

goodmangames said:
Yeah, those are good points. I agree that if feats and PrCs had existed in 1E, the early 1980s Dragon would have been full of them. But it would also have had a lot of crunchy rules that *weren't* feats and PrCs, and that's what I'm hoping the EN World mag will cover. There's a lot more ground to "crunchy" than just feats and PrCs.

If you also eliminate Monsters, Spells and Magic Items from that list, then I'll be impressed.

You have to remember though, those articles that you remember containing new rules systems way back then, have been subsumed by the game. Popular alt-crunch of the day were combat maneuver articles (walks like a feat), martial arts articles (talks like a feat), grappling (it's in the book), rules for underwater combat (a few publishers have tackled this), rules for planar travel (when will MotP be OGC?), monsters (dragons every april), etc. D20 now handles the stuff that came in those articles. Unlike 1st ed. The reason Dragon articles were so rich with creamy flavor and satisfying crunch was because D&D was still immature. 20 years later all of those articles, knowledge from other system, etc was sifted through Monte, Skip and Jonathon to create 3rd ed.

Of course, you won't believe me till you see it. But I think the magazine will speak for itself. Morrus holds in his hands the top-secret table of contents which, I suspect, will contain plenty of crunch without excessive reliance on feats and PrCs.

Well, it's not like I was invited to the party.

On this topic, though: What would people LIKE to see? What was your favorite era of Dragon? If you could balance a magazine's contents exactly as you'd like, what would you do?

Well, I happen to like feats and prestige classes. You'll find they fit your 2,000-4,000 word article requirements much better than any other kind of article. Optimally though, an article would transcend its d20-ness and be useful for all gamers. This way I can hand your magazine to a non-d20 player and infect him with d20 while showing him a generic gaming article.

Joe Mucchiello
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com

jmucchiello · Nov 20, 2002

Aaron L said:
A good system for customizing core classes as suggested in the PHB would be nice too.

It has no release date at the moment but it will be called Character Customization. Coming soon from Throwing Dice Games is about all I'll say about it now though.

ColonelHardisson · Nov 20, 2002

Re: Re: Re: [PR] EN World Print Magazine to be Published by Goodman Games

goodmangames said:
On this topic, though: What would people LIKE to see? What was your favorite era of Dragon? If you could balance a magazine's contents exactly as you'd like, what would you do?

Hmmm. Good question. I've been rambling through my Dragon Archive CD-ROM lately, and I like the wild 'n' woolly feel of Dragon of the 70s/early 80s. Short, succinct articles on a variety of topics were the order of the day. If you have the archive, check the years from about 1977 to 1981, and that's pretty much what I'd like to see, more or less. Even articles about other games would be OK, if they bore directly upon d20. That is, and this is off the top of my head, ways to use, say, Risk as a fill-in for a d20 mass combat system. Stuff like that.

trancejeremy · Nov 20, 2002

Most of the "good" 1st edition NPC classes were in those pages: Samuri around issue 63, Anti-Paladin, a full witch writeup, alternate bard (A bard, not so hard).

Ditto!

Though I'm glad this is avoiding the path of another magazine (or pseudo-magazine) and being nothing more than ads from other companies (or material cut from their products).

Greybar · Nov 20, 2002

If you could balance a magazine's contents exactly as you'd like, what would you do?

The new magazine has the unenviable position of currently being all things to all people, since it hasn't taken final physical form yet.

Here's how I'm reading the PR:

The current Dragon magazine focuses on crunch stuff you can pop in your game right now. Secondarily, it has articles in the Wizard's Toolbox section that are more theoretical.

My read of ENMag (to abbrev.) is that it is first theoretical, and then crunch. Perhaps no PrCs and feats, but longer articles introducing organzations (which might happen to have a couple PrC ideas embedded), monsters (which eventually have stats), or "house rule" ideas (which might happen to have feats).

Now whether I am right or not is entirely another matter...

John

Dave G · Nov 20, 2002

Congrats! I want a subscription!!!

[PR] EN World Print Magazine to be Published by Goodman Games

goodmangames

First Post

goodmangames

First Post

Crothian

First Post

Aaron L

Hero

jmucchiello

Hero

jmucchiello

Hero

ColonelHardisson

What? Me Worry?

trancejeremy

Adventurer

Greybar

No Trouble at All

Dave G

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